CELEBRITY IS RETIRING BECKHAM’S ENDURING LEGACY

It’s of his wife, Victoria, at his introduction to Major League Soccer and the Los Angeles Galaxy on a sweltering July day six years ago. Five thousand fans, 500 international journalists and one news helicopter attended the event, beamed live on television across the planet, with breathless anticipation for the grand arrival of soccer royalty on U.S. soil.

Victoria walked out first, stopping at an area where photographers were cordoned off. Walked gingerly. She was in 6-inch stiletto heels, designer sunglasses and a radioactive fuchsia dress with a matching handbag.

The enduring image: Posh Spice sticking one knee in front of the other, propping her left hand on her hip and just standing there, for 15 seconds, for 30 seconds, for a full minute, posing, preening, while camera shutters exploded in front of her, while confetti danced in the air, while the crowd roared, while the helicopter pounded overhead.

Her 38-year-old husband announced Thursday that he’s retiring from soccer at the end of Paris Saint-Germain’s season, releasing a meticulously crafted statement that he couldn’t possibly have written. Like everything else in their life, it was no doubt scripted by a legion of handlers.

Retirement? The word carries a certain finality that doesn’t apply to Beckham. Or at least not to Brand Beckham.

His legacy will be defined by location. People in England will remember the brash kid who rose up through the Manchester United youth system, scored a goal from midfield with the full team at age 20, won six Premier League titles and went on to captain the national team in the World Cup.

Spaniards will remember him as part of Real Madrid’s Galacticos, an unprecedented assemblage of superstars that brought mixed results, including no trophies in Beckham’s first three seasons there.

Americans will remember an aging, detached superstar who signed a $7.5 million contract with MLS — triple the payroll for most teams — but had little impact on the field when he bothered to play at all, with so many Royal Weddings and Summer Olympics to attend.

Galaxy forward Landon Donovan told Grant Wahl in his book, The Beckham Experiment: “If someone’s paying you more than anybody in the league, more than double anybody in the league, the least we expect is that you show up to every game, whether you are suspended or not. Show up and train hard, show up and play hard.

“I can’t think of another guy where I’d say he wasn’t a good teammate, he didn’t give everything through all this, he didn’t still care. But with him, I’d say no, he wasn’t committed.”

Which is exactly the point. Beckham didn’t need to be committed to soccer. He was bigger than that. He epitomized the modern celebrity athlete, so globally transcendent, so full of Becks appeal that it didn’t matter if his free kicks didn’t swerve quite as much or he didn’t always track back on defense or he skipped practice for an underwear ad photo shoot.

Bend it like Beckham referred to perception.

Fans will debate how good he really was. He was never the best player on his team — not at Manchester United, not at Real Madrid, not with AC Milan, not with the Galaxy, not with Paris Saint-Germain. He was named to the respected European Sports Media Team of the Year, selected by the continent’s top soccer publications, just once; another aging English midfielder reportedly bound for MLS, Chelsea’s Frank Lampard, made it three times.

Beckham did captain the English national team. But it came during an era of exasperating underachievement, never getting past the quarterfinals of a World Cup and almost single-handedly causing its elimination in 1998 with an infamous red card against Argentina.

There will be no debate, however, about his popularity or his relevance, here or in Manchester or in Mongolia. Or about the insignificance of his retirement.

You can take the soccer player off the field. You can’t take the celebrity off the market.